A Preliminary and Shallow Samādhi of Recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti)

Ru Chun: After reading the chapter on training the manas, I tried the method of focused recollection of the Buddha. Sitting cross-legged, I turned the prayer beads while reciting the Buddha's name, with my eyes watching the turning beads, my ears listening to my own recitation, and my mind consciousness guarding this spot without stray thoughts—very focused. I recited for about 40 minutes, and afterward I felt a buzzing in my head.

Not long after, I went to sit in meditation. Shortly after taking my seat, I heard my recitation of the Buddha's name, my heartbeat, and my pulse interweaving together—very clear and powerful, rhythmic, as if resounding from deep within my mind. These sounds seemed to form a separate space, blocking out all other information, and this lasted for over half an hour. Later, I felt my mind consciousness begin to intervene, and the sounds disappeared. May I ask, Master: was this the manas recollecting the Buddha? Is this method of practice correct? Later, I wanted to continue practicing with this method, but I could not recover that state, and I don't know why.

Assessment: If one is purely focused on recollection of the Buddha, then one must gather in all six faculties. What is meant by gathering in the six faculties is that the manas recollects the Buddha while the other five faculties remain unmoved. But in your case, your hands were moving and the body faculty was moving, the eye faculty was also moving, and the ear faculty was also moving. Once the five faculties move, the manas will inevitably attend to them, dispersing attention. This requires an enormous amount of energy to keep the manas's focus sustained, which is extremely difficult. Therefore your meditative concentration was not deep, and later you could not recover that state. Nevertheless, your meditative concentration was still quite good—an initial samādhi of recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti-samādhi) appeared. It is just that the state of samādhi was not deep or enduring. Once you let go of the five faculties, the state of samādhi of recollection of the Buddha will deepen and become firm.

Ru Chun: I misunderstood it. I thought it meant the six consciousnesses concentrating their effort on one thing, so as to lead the manas to join in together. I will make some adjustments.